Failed Future (Air Awakens: Vortex Chronicles, #3)

by Elise Kova

She was trapped between something dark and twisted that kept trying to snarl her in its thorny embrace, and everything she once thought she knew about herself.

“Yes, my Champion.” “Thank you, my Voice.”

But Vi was still very much grounded in the world. It was a world of men who cut down women to take their children. A world of red lightning.

“Yargen, protect me.” Vi didn’t know if it was a prayer, a demand, or just a wish. She’d take all three, if that’s what got her through.

“Maybe we’re meant to hurt and be hurt. Maybe we’re just meant to burn.”

“If we’re meant to burn, then we burn together.”

“Perhaps you’re right about us burning together, because only you can set me on fire.”

“I need you to accept that this, however perfect it can feel, isn’t. I want you to stay with me despite that fact. Stay with me because it is messy, and raw, and something we need but may also be terrified to want.”

“Everything.” There was no hesitation. No holding back. “She is everything.”

She loved him. And he loved her… despite both of them knowing better. Despite neither being brave enough to say it in such plain terms. Those facts made no difference in the end. They had fallen in love despite themselves. They just had yet to be brave enough to say it aloud.

But the king who breaks his own rules is a ruler soon to lose his crown.”

If they were destined for heartbreak, she would steal as many nights as she could along the way.

“Some emotions are as sharp as knives that don’t dull or rust with time.”

“I find myself thinking, more and more, that I am cursed.” Her fingers laced with his. “You are not cursed, you are chosen.” Taavin held her tighter. “Are they really so different?”

“I can guarantee one thing.” “What’s that?” “Should you want it… allow my arms to be your home. Here is home. Because, as I told you once, here is where you are safe.”

Imperfection fit them both well. Maybe life had carved enough parts out of each of them that they needed each other to feel whole.

She was a blaze of fire through the dark night.

He was just another man who wanted power and none of the responsibility attached. Vi had dealt with men like him her whole life—she called them Senators.

She was the fire of her forefathers. She was the bitter ice that had hardened her. She was the frozen flames of the Goddess herself embodied in crystal: hard, unmoving, unfeeling.

In the darkness, the crown princess felt herself burning alive, from her heart outward. But she didn’t cry. She didn’t call for help. She let the fires within burn. Until there was nothing left but ash.

A small part of her still loved him. And that terrified Vi more than anything.

There was magic in the world. Powers great and small. Powers to heal and destroy. But there was no power that granted one the hold over time itself. To have that… one would have to be a… a… a goddess.

Why was the line between love and hate so confusingly thin?

They were two mortals, playing at godhood.